


A Purely Professional Service

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [312]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anxiety, Begging, Denial, Dirty Talk, Dom!Bucky, Humiliation, Humiliation kink, Kink Discovery, Light BDSM, M/M, Name-Calling, Praise Kink, The First Hint of Feelings, Tony Is An Excellent Ex, mild bondage, past trauma, sub!Steve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-08 06:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21471436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: He almost calls it off.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, past Steve Rogers/Tony Stark - Relationship, past Wanda Maximoff/James "Bucky" Barnes
Series: Mental Mimosa [312]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1012767
Comments: 72
Kudos: 195





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](https://twitter.com/catchclaw/status/1195191468501143552?s=20). Bless you, places!

He almost calls it off. 

He has the phone in his hand and he’s scrolling through his Recents and he's this close to clicking and then he gets that fluttery feeling in his gut again, the one that’s been chasing him since he first opened up that website, the one that Tony swore was the answer to all his problems--namely: getting the hell out of his own head.

“You’re stuck,” Tony’d said, plain and simple, as he reached for the bottle of wine. “You, my friend, are in a goddamn rut. And not the fun kind.”

“I’m not stuck.” The words had sounded lame even to him, to the passing waiter, probably. “I’m stressed out.”

“Wasn’t that the whole point of you shunning civilization and decent clothes in favor of seven flavors of plaid?"

“Wasn’t what?”

Tony had waved his hands in the air. “You being a walking stress bomb, Steve! Jesus. I thought the cabin-in-the-woods and using pine cones as a pillow was supposed to change all that. And yet”--here he leaned across the garlic bread and his fettuccine, his voice dropping out of shouty--“and yet, here you are with six months of clean air in your lungs, supposedly, and you’re still a fucking Brillo bath bomb of angst. Seriously, man: what gives?”

Steve’d hidden behind his angel hair for a while and Tony had let him, which was in and of itself worrying.

“Look,” Steve said finally, “maybe I’m still carrying some crap around with me--"

A snort. “Maybe. Uh huh.”

“And maybe it hasn’t been as simple as I’d thought it would be, getting out of town and everything. Not as simple as, you know, flipping some mental switch.” He’d looked up, squinted at Tony in the candlelight. It was a relief to say it out loud. “I thought I’d leave town and I’d be able to forget and I wouldn’t feel like this anymore.”

“Like--?”

“Like I’m skydiving without a parachute every damn day, and yeah, there are times out there when it's not so bad, when I’m too busy to focus on anything except the fence I’m building or the tree I’m cutting down, you know.”

“But you thought it’d be like that all the time. That you’d be able to let go of that shit and breathe.”

He’d felt a surge of affection for Tony then; there was a reason they’d stayed friends after they ditched the rings. “Yeah, exactly.”

Tony held his eye for a second and then grinned, the big, wide, _ I have a cunning plan _ sort of smile that usually presaged a misdemeanor. “So, I can’t help in re: the whole all the time thing, but I think I know somebody who can add on an hour or two."

“Who?”

“Gimme your phone.”

Which was how the website had made it into his bookmarks, how he’d stayed up in Tony’s guest room half the night scrolling and thinking maybe, just maybe--

And then he’d woken up in the morning to find out his two AM self had been busy and booked an appointment for the next week and well, that’s where he is: back in the city for the second time in five days, standing on the street outside a bland-looking office building on perfectly ordinary block in Brooklyn, fingering the Recents on his phone.

The first session was just a looksee, the website had said, a fact briskly repeated by the woman he’d had to call to confirm. “Chemistry is important in these things,” she’d said in a tea-and-crumpets accent. “Before the work starts, it’s important for everyone to have a chance to sniff each other out, as it were.”

“But there’s no”--he’d winced in the little kitchen in his cabin, leaned hard against the sink for support. “What I mean is, this isn’t an, er--we’re not talking about sex or anything like that. Right?”

She sighed. He’d practically heard her roll her eyes. “Sessions can be sexual in nature for some of our clients, yes, but you’re not renting an escort, Mr. Rogers. Ours is purely a professional service. As you’d know if you’d bothered to read the consent form that you’ve already signed online.”

He’d gone the color of beets then. He'd felt it. “No, of course, of course. Sorry. Just wanted to make sure that all that was clear.”

“Six o’clock in the evening, next Wednesday,” Ms. Carter had said on the other end of the line in a voice that shouted _ this conversation’s over, weirdo_. “Please be on time. You already have our address.”

Inside, the building’s lovely in a Marriott sort of way. The elevator, however, is not.

“Sorry,” the guard at the desk says ruefully, a shrug of his shoulders. “They had to order a part or something. Stairs are just over there.”

Five flights up. Five flights to think and dozens of footsteps. But it’s not the climb that has him winded when he reaches up to knock on Suite 505’s door.

The door buzzes and he walks in and comes to a dead fucking stop because the man who’s waiting for him is one of the prettiest he’s ever seen. Dark hair and long lashes. A soft-looking mouth. Bright blue eyes that find his and stay there. Dear god.

“You’re right on time.” The guy pushes up the cuff of his leather jacket. “A minute early, in fact.” He smiles and hello, Steve’s knees are already Jello even before the guy purrs: “Eager, aren’t you? I like that.”

“Um. I, er.” Shit, he sounds like he’s having a stroke. Kinda feels like it. “I’m Steve.”

Another smile, one with an edge. “I know who you are, Mr. Six O’Clock. C’mon in here with me. Let’s talk.”


	2. Chapter 2

Mr. Six O’Clock isn’t what he expects.

From the way Peggy had described the guy’s jitters on the phone, Bucky had been expecting, what? Furtive eyes, flop sweat, some hand wringing--maybe even a bolt for the door. It’s happened with newbies before. Sure, it all seems fun online, but then you’re there and it’s real and some asshole you don’t know is telling you to kneel and, well. The services he offers aren’t for everybody.

But the guy, Steve, he doesn’t run. First, he has the audacity to be gorgeous, which is totally unfair; then, he drools at the first hint of praise; and finally, when summoned, he squares his linebacker shoulders and follows Bucky into the Vanilla Room without so much as a look back at the way that he came.

Oh, yeah, Bucky thinks as he closes the door, locks it, allows himself a private smile. Less than five minutes in and he’s already got session two in the bag. This guy’s definitely gonna repeat. His bank account is breathing easier already.

“Don’t sit there,” he says sharply as Steve moves towards a plush, cream-colored chair.

Steve freezes. Bucky can practically hear him swallow. “Ok. I’m sorry.”

Bucky reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out his leather gloves. “And no apologies in here, Steve, ever, unless I ask for them. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He settles himself on the small couch by the door and makes a show of putting on his gloves, his eyes never leaving Steve’s steadily reddening face. There’s a question written there that the guy’s smart enough not to ask, and yeah, Bucky likes that. “Come here.”

Steve takes two steps towards him, then stops. Hesitates. Um. “Where would you like me to sit?”

Ah. “You learn quick, don’t you?”

“I try to.”

Bucky never goes into a session--even a cupcake one like this one--without a particular plan. Not anything fancy, just some notes on a cocktail napkin, usually, but enough to give him a sense of the beats he wants to hit, the place he wants to leave the sub so they’ll be hungry for next time. It doesn’t treat them like a bible or anything, but he’s been at this long enough to know himself: without some self-imposed boundaries, he kind of has a tendency to slip out of line. He’s got the pink slips (and memories of black eyes and broken lips) to prove it. 

That Carter had been willing to give him a chance hadn’t stopped feeling like a gift. It’d been a year since he’d been hauled out of the Falcon Club by the owner himself and told in loud and absolutely uncertain terms not to bother coming back for his last paycheck; nine since a kind word from a former client had gotten him an interview at Allies, and lo and behold, he was feeling a lot less like shit these days.

“You do understand,” Ms. Carter had said, her long fingers steepling, “that I have an absolute zero tolerance for unprofessionalism.”

“Yes.”

She raised an eyebrow at him and he had to fight not to fucking squirm. “That includes showing up to a session inebriated. Or with even a hint of alcohol on your person.”

He’d gritted his teeth. “I understand.”

"How long were you at the Falcon, Mr. Barnes?"

"Just over a year." She knew that, damn it.

"I see. And how long with the Widows in Las Vegas?"

"Almost three."

A smile. It's like salt in the wound. "And both terminated your employment?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Again, she knew why. He had no doubt she'd been on the horn to both. "There were incidents, ma'am. Of what you might call unprofessional behavior."

"You were drunk."

What the fuck. "Among other things."

"Leaving unsatisfied clients in your wake. Among other things."

"It wasn't my finest hour, Ms. Carter. In either place."

"But you still want to do this kind of work." It isn't really a question. "And you think I should risk my carefully cultivated reputation to give you one last chance. Is that it?"

He'd stood up, humiliation and anger twisting in his throat. "Yes! Why the fuck do you think I'm here?"

There'd been a long moment of silence. Another eyebrow raised. Then she'd pointed at his chair. "I suggest you sit down, Mr. Barnes."

He did.

"You wouldn't be here if I didn't think you had promise. One of your former clients at the Falcon is a dear friend; he sings your praises. As does Ms. Romanov in Las Vegas." She chuckled. "And Mr. Wilson, too, though don't quote me on that."

"The hell he did."

"When you're sober, he said, you're a king. When you're not, well--he wouldn't let you within a mile of a client."

"I'm sober now." Mostly. Except when he wasn't. "I've given it up."

“Good. Because I’ll be damned if I’ll wait for a client to complain. They pay too much for our time and expertise to be bothered with any of our petty, personal nonsense. Don’t you agree?”

“I do.”

“If you so much as consider breaking the house rules, Mr. Barnes, I’ll know, and I'll throw you out on your ass and see to it that no decent club in the city or the Outer Boroughs will ever contract with you again.” Her lips had found a beautiful, terrifying smile, a snake about to strangle. “I trust that we understand each other.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He’d held her gaze and blown out his breath. “We certainly do.”  
  


****

So he was a planner now, more than he’d ever been, and based on the profile Carter had emailed him, his sketch of Mr. Six had looked like this: a few verbal pushes to get a feel for his responsiveness, some light banter, and then park the guy on the sofa next to him for the customary (and Carter required) conversation about desires, boundaries, the client’s answers to the online questionnaire, _ et fin_. But something about him--ok, his broad shoulders and pretty face and his adorable eagerness--makes Bucky want to improvise. Just a little, nothing too crazy. Just, you know: fuck the sofa.

“Steve?”

“Yes?”

Bucky tips a gloved hand towards the floor. “Kneel.”

Those big, blue eyes get bigger and so, Bucky’s willing to bet, does something else. The flush on Steve’s throat is a hell of a tell. “You,” Steve stammers, “you want me to--?”

“Mmmm. We have some heavy stuff to discuss and we both know, don’t we, Steve, that you’re most at ease when you're on your knees.”

It’s a push, like the gloves, and for a heartbeat, Bucky wonders if he’s gone too far. There’s a flutter in his chest. He has, hasn’t he? Shit.

But then the prettiest thing happens, the nicest he’s seen in ages: Steve bites his lip and lowers himself to the carpet, easy, until his jeans are making love to the soft, winter white rug. “Better?”

“_Much _ better.” He brushes his gloved knuckles over the swell of Steve’s cheek. “What do you think?”

A nod. “Yes.”

There’s a warm pit in his gut, a wave like his favorite whiskey. “Look at me. Say that again.”

Steve’s lashes lift and his head tips up. His eyes are like the center of a match. “Yes.”

Bucky lets himself grin and watches Steve do the same and oh, hell, this guy is going to be so much wonderful trouble, isn’t he? Hopefully his bank account’s as big as he is. Beautiful, needy, and rich: Bucky’s personal holy trifecta. Please god, he thinks, tracing Steve’s lips with leather; he’s earned a client like this. All the shits at Wilson’s club and the dull Wall Street types he’s strapped for Carter and Co. over the last long, strictly bill-paying months; it’s been a fucking lifetime since the job felt like fun. Maybe Steve could be his reward for all that bullshit, huh--at least for an hour (and a couple thousand) a week.

“Yeah,” he says to himself, to the shiver in Steve’s shoulders. “Good. Very good.”


	3. Chapter 3

What’s funny is how not-at-all weird it all seems.

Not weird to be on his knees in front of a guy he doesn’t know--whose _ name _ he doesn’t even know, god--in a room he’s never been in where everything’s white and soft, where the light is low and he’s talking to a stranger about things he’s never said out loud before this moment and yet he feels like a feather, bright and weightless and stuck to the ground only by the stranger’s eyes on his, by the tease of leather on his cheek. Never mind that all they’ve done is talk about what his limits, what he doesn’t want; his body’s already buzzing. What he wouldn’t fucking give for the guy to touch him again.

“So you don’t like pain,” the guy says in that firm, honey voice. “I think we’ve established that, hmm?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want me to hurt you.”

“No.”

There’s a softness to the words, even though the man’s eyes are like steel. “Very good. Then I won’t.” He leans forward a little and smiles and holy god, is that sexy. “Any other boundaries we haven’t covered?”

Steve shakes his head.

“Mmmm. Let’s talk about what you do like, then.”

_ You_, Steve wants to say, has to clench his teeth not to. _ Let’s start with you_.

The guy shifts again and shrugs out of his jacket. Beneath it, he’s wearing a dark blue button-down that’s open at his throat and that shows off more muscle that Steve would have guessed. The gloves stay on and so does the smirk and fuck, the heat that’s been building in Steve’s body take a serious turn towards his dick.

“For example,” the guy says, "you like this: sitting down there while I’m up here. Don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What else do you like, darling?”

Oh god. “I--I answered that already. Online.”

“I know you did. But I want to hear you say them out loud. I want to hear you say them to me.”

He has to look at the floor, he has to. His face is so hot he can’t think. “Why? You already know, why do I have to--?”

“Because you want me to touch you. And I’m not touching you again, Steve, until you tell me what you want. If you can’t say it, you can’t have it; that’s my number one rule.”

Something flutters in Steve’s gut. “That’s a rule?”

“Yes. Think of it as a different kind of boundary.

“Oh.”

“Look at me.” 

It sounds like a command, not a choice. That makes it easier to raise his head.

“Good.” Satin in that word, and steel. “Tell me what you like. I won’t ask again.”

“I like this. Kneeling in front of you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I like...I like it when you tell me what to do.”

The guy’s gaze flip to Steve’s belt and back and the smirk on his face is now incredibly smug. “Oh, I can see that, darling. What else? What else do you want me to do to you when we’re together?”

“Tie me up,” Steve’s mouth says without his goddamn permission. “Tie me up and not give me what I want.”

That gets him two fingers under his chin, the leather pressing into his skin and holding him there, holding, not giving him room to look away. “Is that so. You want me to tease you?”

“_Yes_.”

“Get you all riled up and not let you come, hmm?”

A whimper, a sound of pure, embarrassing want. “Oh, god.”

The fingers fall away. “Tsk. That didn’t sound like a yes.”

“Yes,” Steve says. Fuck, he sounds so goddamn desperate; why the hell does that turn him on? “Please.”

The guy’s palm cups his cheek. “Maybe I’ll tie you up and leave you there. Let somebody else find you like that, your face red and your pretty dick all nice and hard.”

His hips kick. “No!”

“No?” A thumb curves over his chin. “You don’t want anybody to see you dripping, ready to come all over yourself just from the sound of my voice?”

There’s a hot tear on his cheek. Another. Because he can picture it: his hands roped to his headboard, his cock stiff against his stomach, one of his neighbors from down the road knocking on his front door and letting themselves in--

“Do you like being humiliated, darling?”

“I don’t know." He thinks about Tony calling him names, sometime, when they were fucking; names that made him squirm and stiffen as Tony bit them into the back of his neck. "I’ve never thought about it like that.”

“But you’re thinking about it now. Yeah, you are. I can see you twitching in your jeans. You’re so fucking hard, aren’t you? Just from talking about it. Letting yourself think about it.”

All Steve can manage is a nod.

The guy’s voice is velvet now, smoother than his glove. “Tell me. What are you seeing?”

“My"--he swallows, tries again. "My hands tied to the headboard.”

“Who tied them?”

He can hardly get the words out. “I did.”

“Why?”

“Because you told me to.”

“Mmmm. And what else did I tell you to do?”

“To take my clothes off.”

“And did you?”

“Uh huh.”

“Is that why you’re tied to the bed naked, darling? Because that’s what I told you to do it?”

The room around them has disappeared, everything has. No more light, no more air: just the bubble that’s built between them, the one shaped by the guy’s hands and his voice.

“Yes.”

“Good boy. What a good boy you are to do what you’re told.” He can hear the guy smile. “So after I leave you like that, who finds you?”

Steve squirms. There’s a burn of shame in his throat. “My neighbor. My front door’s unlocked and she hasn’t seen me all day. She’s worried.”

“Of course is she is. She likes you."

“She’s worried and she can’t find me and then she, um, she opens my bedroom door, and--”

The guy suddenly pulls Steve’s hair, a tug that goes straight to his dick. “And what does she see?”

“She sees what I’ve done to myself. She sees how hard I am, how hard you made me.”

“Yes, I did,” the guys hums. “But you haven’t come yet, have you? Because you can’t touch yourself, no matter how badly you want to. And you’re fucking dying for it, aren’t you?”

He hears himself whine. “Yes.”

“It’s humiliating, isn’t it? For her to see your big dick. Mmm, and she can see how tight your balls are, Steve.” A hint of breath on his face. “They’re so full, aren’t they? She can see what a slut you are for me.”

Jesus, he’s going to die. Less than an hour into _ this _ and he’s about to have a fucking coronary right here inside a room built like a goddamn vanilla cupcake. “Oh, god.”

A chuckle. “You like that, too, don’t you? When I call you a slut.”

There’s a warning jolt in his balls. Oh shit. Oh shit. “Fuck.”

That hand falls away again, _ no! _

Crap, did Steve say that out loud? 

“I asked you a question, darling. Do you like it or not?”

Steve opens his eyes and the guy’s are right there, blue and burning, intense and so goddamn beautiful that all that comes out is the truth: “Fuck, yes. Say it again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...sorry, yeah. This is just porn.


	4. Chapter 4

“So things might’ve gotten a little out of hand in a session the other night."

Loki raises an eyebrow over his pinot grigio. “Out of hand as in…?”

“As in,” Bucky says, stabbing half heartedly at his salad, “I threw too much at the client on day one.”

“Did you touch him?”

“Not skin-to-skin, no.”

A smirk. “Did you make him touch himself?”

Bucky catches the heads of the ladies at the next table swinging towards them in unison and leans over his plate. “Use your fucking inside voice, Loki.”

“I am.” Loki sets down his glass and sweeps a hand over the proceedings. “I can’t help if your problems are so much more interesting than those of the Botox brigade.”

It’s raining, Bucky tells himself. That’s the problem. Normally, they’d be having lunch outside in the nice open air and the worst of Loki’s bullshit would get swallowed by the traffic and the street noise. But it was straight up pouring and Loki hadn’t been a complete asshole lately and at some level, honestly, he’s kind of immune to his best friend’s outlandishness these days. Not so the ladies who lunch in Loki’s restaurant. Which is why he feels no shame in snagging Loki’s glass and drowning his sorrows for a second in white.

“Please,” Loki says dryly. “Help yourself.”

“Look,” Bucky says, “nobody touched anybody, ok? And nobody came. I had him in the fucking Vanilla Room, for god’s sake! It was just...I don’t know, super intense.”

“You liked him. Him?”

“Him.”

Loki tilts his head. “And you were attracted to him. Obviously.”

That gorgeous face. Those wide eyes. The tremor in that big, beautiful body as Steve had realized he was he getting exactly what he’d asked for: that Bucky had led him right to the edge of orgasm and was absolutely not going to let him come.

“Oh, god,” Steve had said, two words within a soft fugue of sound. “Oh, god, oh god, oh god.”

And Bucky had caught the back of Steve’s neck and leaned down, made a concerted fucking effort not to stare at the man’s open lips. “Not god, darling,” he’d said. “Call me James.”

“Obviously,” Bucky says. 

“Mmmm. Hardly a novel occurrence.”

“Eh, it happens, yeah, but this was more like--more like, we found a groove right away. I’ve seen people for months and never gotten to a place like that, and with this guy, boom, the first goddamn half hour, we’re there.”

Loki’s eyeing him again, squinting a little like he had when they were kids and Buck was doing some very dumb shit that Loki found especially vexing. “Really.”

“I mean, not all the way there. First session and all. But--”

“But. You went home as hard as he did. That’s what I’m hearing.”

He grabs his water and tries to hide the heat in his face behind a shrug. “Maybe.” 

He hadn’t made it home, actually. He’d brought Steve back down and then escorted him to the front door of the suite and then beat feet back into the stupid Vanilla Room with its stupid fluffy off-white everything and opened his jeans and beaten one out quick and dirty, staring at the spot where Steve had been, where the carpet was still indented with his knees, and when he’d come, cupped into his palm, his mind had showed him his spunk on Steve’s face and he’d let out a high, hurt sound and jerked again as he pictured a bloom of white on Steve’s soft, gaping mouth.

“Oh, honey,” Loki says. “Oh, honey, no. No, no.”

“What?”

Loki sighs, long and put upon. “That look on your face, Buck. I’ve seen it before, and please god. Not again.”

“What?”

“You heard me. I’m not watching you shoot yourself in the professional dick again. Surely self-immolation and career suicide was entertaining enough the first time around, hmm? I see no need for you to stage a repeat performance.” 

Oh shit.

“No,” Bucky says. His stomach turns over. Suddenly the rain outside is very, very loud in his ears. “No, _ no _, nuh uh. This is not that. No way is this fucking that.”

Loki lifts a hand and three waiters scurry over. All Loki does is point at his glass and say: “Make it two.”

“This isn’t Vegas, Lo.”

“Isn’t it? There are some rather remarkable similarities. I seem to remember phrases like _ We clicked, Lo _ and _ she’s not like the others, Lo_, and _ she does something to me, Lo, something that stays alive even outside of a session_.”

“I never said that last one.”

Two fresh glasses appear; the smart waiter leaves the bottle, and Loki pours. “Not in quite such articulate terms, no. But you have to admit that I’ve more than captured the jist.”

Bucky grinds his teeth. “I was young and stupid.”

“And a romantic, despite your airs of crass capitalistic greed. And you still are, Buck, which makes you especially ill-suited for your chosen line of work, no matter how fucking good you are at it.”

“Fuck you.” 

“Not a stellar rebuttal, my dear.”

There’s a softness in Loki’s eyes that doesn’t show up very often; the man was aces at concealing the human part of him behind an asshole-ish facade. But Bucky’s known him long enough to know when and where to look, to spot the tiny fissures in the wall of performative dickishness and see the care and concern lurking behind. Most people in Lo’s life, though, weren’t allowed to stick around long enough to even try. 

“Look,” Bucky says after long sip or three. “I understand what you’re saying, but you’re wrong. It looks like this guy was just a one off. I was sure he was up for at least one more session, but I haven’t heard a word.” He shrugs again and tries to swallow the sting. He’d been more than sure Steve would be back; he’d been certain. But it’s been two days and he hasn’t heard a peep, so, yeah. Yet another reason why this wasn’t a repeat of Vegas; after their first session, Wanda had booked a month’s worth the next fucking day. “So I appreciate your concern, Lo, I do, but you’re worrying for nothing.”

Loki’s fingers find his on the table, cool and firm. “I hardly think so. You’re well worth worrying over. Hell, somebody has to, else you’d still be stuck in the desert, wouldn’t you, up to your neck in sand and debt.”

Bucky turns his hand over and squeezes. “Have I not said thank you in a while? Is that what this is about? You feeling underappreciated?”

“Dreadfully.”

“Fine. Thank you for saving my ass, Loki.”

Loki slips his hand free. "_Thank you for giving me a place to live, Loki. _ You missed that bit. Oh, and _ thank you for being such an altruistic landlord and not tossing me on the street when my rent is horrifically late, Loki_.”

“One time. It’s been late one time in three years, you dick.”

“Twice.”

“When was the second time?”

“Come now, let’s not be pedantic.”

It’s hard to growl through a wine-induced grin, but Bucky manages. “Pedantic? At least I don’t bring my work home with me and bang it in the kitchen at three o’clock in the morning.”

Loki rolls his eyes. “He’s not my work, he’s my chef. And it’s only been twice in three years.”

“Three times if you count New Year’s Eve.”

“Yes, but why should we? That was--”

Bucky’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out of his pocket. Oh hell.

He mouths an apology to Loki and opens the call. “Good afternoon, Miss Carter.”

“Mr. Barnes. What the hell happened with your virgin six o’clock on Tuesday?"

He feels the color drain from his face. Loki shoves the wine bottle at him.

“Um. What happened? Why, did he say that something happened?”

There’s a long, glacial pause in which Wanda and Vegas and all the shit that’s come after take a quick, awful trip through his mind. Shit. He should’ve been more fucking careful. He should never have put Steve on his knees. He should’ve--

“What he said,” Ms. Carter says, “is that he’d like a session with you every week for the next three months. Same day, same time. Though he’d like for us to be negotiable on the location.”

“I don’t play in people’s homes, ma’am, if that’s what he’s asking.”

“It is, and I know that’s been your rule in the past. I respect that. I made no guarantees; I merely told the gentleman that we’d consider it. So think about it, Mr. Barnes, and let me know where you land.”

Bucky’s heart is beating again. Three months in advance? Three _ months_? “Yes, ma’am. I will.”

“I’ve added him to your schedule,” Ms. Carter says drily, like this is something that happens every day, which it sure as hell does not. “Don’t forget your four o’clock today. The gentleman’s already called twice this morning to confirm.”

Mr. Barton. A by-the-numbers masochist with a Robin Hood fetish. No problem. “I won’t. Thank you.”

There’s another pause, this one a bit less Antarctic. “Dare I say: thank you, Mr. Barnes. We appreciate your success.”

Bucky cuts the call and drops the phone in his salad.

Loki chuckles. “Not being fired this week, eh?”

“No,” Bucky says, his heart beating a little too happy, a little too fast at the prospect of three months, three full fucking months, of Steve staring up at him like he was salvation. “Not this week, it seems.”

“Well,” Loki says, raising his glass, “here’s to that and the accompanying zeroes in your bank account, my dear. Cheers.”


	5. Chapter 5

“May I speak to Ms. Carter, please?”

“She’s engaged at the moment, sir. Would you like to leave a message, or hold?”

Steve grips the phone a little tighter. “I’ll hold, thanks.”

The person on the other end hums something tuneless. “Suit yourself. Not sure how long she’ll be, sir.”

“Fine,” Steve says, because it’s absolutely not. Fuck, he can’t lose his nerve now; it’s taken him two days to get it up. “Yep, that’s fine. I’ll hold.”

If he thinks about this too much, he’ll freak out and chuck the phone off Tony’s balcony and watch it plumett 40 stories towards the sidewalk and then smash somebody’s windshield or crack somebody’s head and there’ll be cops swarming and fingers pointing up and up and up and then he’ll have bigger problems than trepidation and a hair trigger hard-on whenever he lets himself think about James.

It’s been two days, almost 48 hours, and it’s still so vivid, the bright light way that voice and those eyes and those gloves had made him feel--god, those gloves; every time he closes his eyes, he can feel the slide of warm leather against his skin and hear a sly mouth sliding over _ darling _ and then he’s 16 again, squirming and stiffening in the most inconvenient of public places until he’s desperate to get a hand on himself and reach for the settled space where those 60 minutes had left him. He wants it again, has since the minute the door closed between them, and yet. And yet--

“Call them,” Tony’d said the day before, his voice a little tinny from somewhere in Tokyo. “Book another appointment already. This ain’t rocket science.”

“No, I know, it’s just--” He’d felt himself flush. “I don’t want to seem too eager, I guess?”

A snicker. “That’s kind of the point.”

“Ok, smart ass, but--”

“But what? Is it the money? If it is, say the word and I’ll tell you where to find the black card. It’s in the top drawer of my--”

Steve’d felt an ripple of irritation. It had gotten him up off the couch, got him pacing. “It’s not about the money, Tone. You know that.”

“Well then, Mr. Stick Up His Ass, what is it? Let me guess: you enjoyed it too much. Or do you hate it that I was right? No, beyond right. Like 1000% certified absolutely and completely correct.”

“No shit. That’s one reason I divorced you.”

Tony’d snorted. “You may have filled the paperwork, sunshine, but it was my idea to separate.”

“You’re just proving my point right now. You do realize that, don’t you?”

“Anyway,” Tony’d said breezily. “Nice fucking try, Rogers? You’re not gonna Benedict your way out of answering my question.”

“Does that make you Beatrice?”

And then the banter had been over, boom. “Jesus, you’re not a monk, Steve, no matter how many bees you raise out there, or how much you stomp around alone in the woods. I know you, ok? You need people. And newsflash: you deserve to be happy, and if calling up these nice folks and buying some time with this James guy lights you up in easily digestible 60 minute increments, then fucking go for it. That’s what I say.”

He’d laid his head against the wall of windows and watched the rain for a moment, peered through the curtain of water at the blurred city he knew was still there. “I’m not unhappy, Tony.”

“Yeah, but you’re not exactly a living Macy’s Day Parade, are you?” His tone softened. “Do this thing for yourself. You can still play Dimmsdale 99% of the time, I promise; just give in and let yourself take that one percent.”

He’d wanted to already, he had, but he’d needed to hear it from somebody else, needed someone to tell him that it was really ok. “Yeah. Ok. I will.”

“And do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Stay at the apartment when you’re in town.” He’d made a mournful sound. “I’m out on the road for at least another month.”

“I thought you were coming back next week.”

“Ugh, so did I, but the board has other ideas. They want me on the investor roadshow through India and Poland and Spain so the investors there can get the full Stark Industries Experience, tm.”

“Lucky you.”

“Lucky them,” Tony’d grumbled. “I’m a goddamn delight. Anyway, my place’ll be empty and you’d be doing me a favor, checking in on it now and then.”

“Never mind that the building has 24-hour guards and a secure entrance, not to mention a security system that, as I recall, you designed.”

“It’s not the same as having actual eyes I trust on the ground. Which would be you. Plus, you can water my plants.”

“Succulents don’t need to be watered a lot, Tone.”

“I know, but they do need it, don’t they? Every now and again.” He'd practically heard Tony waggle his eyebrows. "Just like somebody else who I know."

It was a kindness, what he was offering; Steve could see that. And the prospect of coming home, as it were, after James blew his mind was more appealing than wandering into a Marriott for the night or than sticking himself behind the wheel and trying to drive up the Taconic Parkway with a stiff dick and a head full of cotton candy.

“You sure?”

“‘Course I’m sure. Mi casa es all your casa, temporarily. At least until these bastards me come home.”

Later, as he’d made dinner on black marble counters he'd picked out a lifetime ago, he’d wondered: maybe the agency would let James come to him. Wouldn’t be practical for the guy to drive two hours until suburb melted into the country, but if he were here in the city, why not? 

His knife had stopped halfway through a green pepper. Maybe he could plant his knees in one of the Persian rugs they'd brought back from their honeymoon and get worked over in sight of a bed. Maybe it’d be easier to stay in that warm, electric place if he knew he didn’t have to face the real world after, didn't have to pound the sidewalks or hide in a cab when he still couldn't remember how to think.

He’d swallowed and steadied himself against the counter, a hum in his chest that sounded like a moan.

What would it be like if he knew that it was James who’d have to walk away while he got to stay where he was, while he whimpered into the sudden silence and reached down to free his cock and stroked himself right where James had left him, right where he could smell the man’s cologne and feel the heat of his body and hear the curl of that gorgeous, teasing tongue:

_ Oh, you’re not a good boy at all, are you? Tsk, tsk. Look at you, so pretty and desperate. _

_ I’m trying to be good. _

_ I know you are. But you can’t help it, can you, no matter how hard you try, because deep down, _ _ darling_, _down where it counts, we both know, don't we? Y___o_u're _ a_ slut. _

“Sir? Are you still there?”

Steve jumps, the phone in his hand half-forgotten. “Er, yes. I’m here.”

“Hold for Ms. Carter, please. May I tell her who’s calling?”

“Steve Rogers.”

“One moment.”

Was that possible? To have James here? James on the balcony with him in the afternoon breeze, on a blindingly bright day like this one: Steve's hands tied to one of the sleek metal chairs, his cock free and bobbing greedily as people in the high rise across the street looked on. Oh, _ god_. 

“Mr. Rogers.” Her voice is impeccably smooth, like cream poured over glass. “How are you? Everything was to your satisfaction, I trust.”

“Yes, it was. That’s why I’m calling. I, uh--I’d like to book a few more sessions.”

“Excellent. Would you like to see James again, or would you prefer to try someone new?”

Does his voice seriously tremble? “I’d prefer to stick with James.”

“Lovely.”

He takes a deep breath, for some reason. Only figures out why when he opens his mouth. “How far ahead can I book an appointment?”

“Three months,” she says. “Shall I turn the calendar that far ahead?”

“In a second, yes. But, first"--he scrubs a hand over his sudden, all encompassing grin--"what does his schedule look like next week?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Inspiration for today's installment.](https://twitter.com/bestofcevans/status/1198416672098594817) Good god.

“Please,” Steve says. The word’s like toffee in his mouth; the air around him is buzzing. “Please! I promise I’ll be good.”

There’s a sigh from behind him and just that sound, the expression that it promises--James’ eyes narrowed, his lovely mouth pursed, the unfettered disappointment on its face--has Steve straining again at the cord around his wrists. Which James can see because James is behind him, draped in a wide armchair like a lazy, blue-eyed lion. Or so he’d been the last time Steve had been allowed to look. How long ago was that? 10 minutes? An hour? How long has he been on his knees like this, shirtless and tied up and blind?

“Darling,” James says patiently, “as much as I’d like to believe you, we both know that’s a lie.”

“It’s not! I’ll--”

“Oh, I have no doubt you’d try. You were trying before, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I was.”

“Hmmmm.” He hear the chair shift. “You were trying your best.”

Steve closes his eyes, blinks back the water. “_ Yes. _”

“You were trying your best and you still couldn’t keep your hands off your cock, could you? Even after I warned you. I told you not to touch yourself and yet you did it anyway.”

It’d only been a momentary lapse: the heel of his palm brushing the heat in his jeans, but James had seen it and James gone still, had stopped tracing the bare lines of his collarbone with gloved fingers and leaned back, shaking his head, and Steve had known right then and right there that he was absolutely fucked: there was no way James’ skin would touch his tonight.

But what he hadn’t anticipated was the weight in his stomach when James had told him to turn around and put hands behind his back and then, oh, the way his cock had jolted when he’d felt soft silk turn circle on his wrists and come together in a knot, hard.

He’d felt James’ breath in his hair and the slide of a glove over the stiff lines of his back. “How does that feel, hmm? Too tight?”

He’d shaken his head.

“Wiggle your fingers for me. There, like that.” James had squeezed his shoulder lightly. “If you start feeling uncomfortable, what will you say?”

It’d been hard to talk; he was feeling too much, too beautifully strange. But he knew he had to get out the word or James would untie him and walk away and that would be far more of a torture than this.

“Lemondrops,” he’d whispered.

“Good boy. And what will I say if I decide we need to stop?”

“Honeysuckle.”

“That’s right, darling. Good.”

But then that gentleness had bled away and been replaced by the soft cruelty of a man who wouldn’t so much as let Steve look at him and it’s exquisite, is what it is. It’s making him crazy. It’s made his dick unrepentantly hard.

“Three sessions,” James says, very softly. “I’ve taken care of you for three sessions now, and part of a fourth. I thought you understood the rules.”

“I do.” His voice is louder than he wants it. “I understand them.”

A hum. “Remind me of rule number three, then.”

Steve swallows. “I...I’m not allowed to touch myself unless you tell me to.”

“Mmm. And why is that?”

“Why?” Steve’s brain stutters; had James told him that? He’s said so much over the past few weeks, but has he ever said--?

A bark, a sound that makes his hips jerk. “Why, Steve?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.”

His chest’s a rubber band of panic. “No. I’m sorry, I don’t--”

And then there’s a hand in his hair, yanking, pulling until he’s sitting up straight, his knees digging into the soft, shaggy carpet and he can feel James standing behind him, the heat of his body, the brush of his suit coat against the bare skin of Steve’s back.

“Because,” James says, cool again, this voice a smooth, flat stone, “when you’re in this room, Steve, your pleasure belongs to me. When you’re with me, I’m the only one who’s allowed to make you feel good.”

There’s a shot of lightning up his spine and a noise in his throat, in his mouth, in his ears that he can hear but can’t stop and then James’s arm is caught around his chest, the buttons on his sleeve biting Steve’s collarbones.

“See? That’s what you want too, isn’t it? You want me to make you feel good.”

“Yes.” God, he wants to see James’s face, to feel those sleepy firefly eyes on him. Why won't James let him turn around? “Please, yes.”

A rumble. “Please what? Don’t you like this?”

“Yes,” Steve says, because he does, oh fuck, does he. “But--”

“But what, darling?”

He tips his head back and leans into the rough clutch of leather fingers. “But please, James. _ Please _. Let me come.”

  
****

There’s part of Bucky--mainly, the part trying to storm out of his fly--that wants to give in immediately, which is a serious reminder that he's fucked. How'd he let himself forget that?

The thing was, though, after he let the first session go off the rails, he’d kept his shit together the last two weeks. He’d teased and he’d talked and he’d gotten no closer than an arm’s length and everything had gone just fine that way. He’d patted himself on the back once each hour had ended and said _ I told you so _ to Loki and, well, ok.

But tonight, as soon as Steve had walked in, he’d gone right to his knees in front of Bucky’s chair without being asked, without so much as a word to Buck, or a glance. He’d bowed his pretty head and waited until Bucky’d said his name to lift his chin and give this shy little smile and something about that had turned Bucky’s crank--the one with his name on it, the one he’d managed to cling to during all his years in the business, the one that told him it made complete sense to point at the pale blue of Steve’s pullover and growl: “Take it off.”

And he _ had_, this guy, with zero hesitation, and the space between them had suddenly felt too great and too goddamn small.

So: Steve was built like a tank and had biceps that seemed illegal, sure; he wasn’t the first ripped-as-hell guy Bucky'd ever had in a scene. But...but he also had skin as sensitive as butterflies and every time Bucky touched him, even the slightest brush, he bit his lip and squirmed and Bucky hadn’t even got to (had been assiduously avoiding) the really interesting bits. But Steve had gotten hard anyway, the kind of hard that neither one of them could ignore, and that’s how they’d ended up here: Steve on his knees with his head tipped back against Bucky’s stomach and his mouth saying, pleading: 

“Please. Let me come.”

The correct answer is No. That’s rule number four: No surprise orgasms for anybody, ever; if anybody wants come during a session, that has to be agreed upon in advance. The time to set that chip was in the first five minutes of the session before thing got rolling and maybe they would’ve had that conversation if Steve hadn’t gone right to the carpet but he had, and fuck it, they’re here. There’s a gorgeous giant shivering in his grip and a knot in his stomach made of heat and light and he knows that this isn’t about what he wants; it never is. This is about the client and what’s best for them. If the two in this moment happen to coincide, then what’s the harm in leaning into the curve? 

A curve marked with red flags wearing Wanda’s face that say, loudly: _ This shit, again? _But then he’s around the curve and the warning’s gone and all that matters is the steel in his trousers and Steve.

“Steve.”

“Yes?”

He drops his hand to cup Steve’s heck and bows his head, nuzzles the top of the Steve’s hair. He smells like citrus and clean, needy sweat. “You may come, darling, because I’m feeling incredibly generous. But only on one condition.”

Steve’s whole body goes still. “What’s that?”

“Very simple: your dick stays in your pants.”

“But--!”

“But what?” He strokes Steve’s pulse, the soft skin beneath his ear. “You tapping out?”

A whine, one that echoes through Steve’s whole body and rings in Bucky’s ears. “No.”

“You sure? Just say the word and I’ll stop.”

“I’m sure. Please don’t--”

Ah, god. Bucky’s cock twitches. Why does that word in Steve’s mouth sound so fucking hot? “Shhh,” he says. “Shhh, darling. Unless you ask me to, I won’t.”

Steve is like putty, then, living clay determined to hold the mold of Bucky’s commands. Even when those leave him alone on the floor, blue eyes in a rose-colored face, kneeing in front of the chair between Bucky’s spread legs. His hands are still tied. He looks terrified. He looks like he’s about to jizz in his pants.

“What…” Steve licks his lips, tries again. “What do you want me to do?”

“Sit up straight.” He does. “Scoot a little closer, there, that’s it.” He leans forward and drops a hand, cups it between the edge of the soft edge of the chair and Steve’s crotch. The palm of his glove just catches the curve of Steve’s bulge. 

Steve sucks in a breath. The plains of his chest go scarlet and dear god, Bucky’s cock throbs. Does it show on his face? He swallows. It better not. Breaking the rules is one thing, but letting Steve know that they’re breaking them, that they’re doing something they shouldn’t--that shit would be bad. Better for Steve to think that he’s earned this, that his acquiescence over the past month is being rewarded at last; he sure as shit doesn’t need to know that what’s about to happen is just as much for Bucky as it will be for him.

“Now, darling,” Bucky says evenly, locking his eyes with Steve’s and praying it’s the professional he sees and not the man, "rub yourself off against my hand.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> h/t to places for ensuring that I saw that clip! Great dirty minds think alike.


End file.
